


merry and bright

by homework78



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M, Neglect, Yu Narukami's Canon Parents, yosuke fixes it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 20:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homework78/pseuds/homework78
Summary: Yu is stuck in Tokyo for Christmas during his senior year of high school, and can't visit home for the holidays. Yosuke helps him cope and gifts him a happy ending.





	merry and bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yourashenone](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=yourashenone).



> Written for the Souyo Secret Santa Gift Exchange! Hopefully my recipient likes it. Maybe I'll add on a porny coda for New Years?!
> 
> Major props to [Angevon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angevon/) for giving it a last-minute once over!

It snowed in Tokyo during the Christmas Eve of Yu’s third year.

He watched the snow gather on the sidewalk from the safety of the Shibuya train station entrance. He hadn’t dressed in his white coat today. The longer he waited to leave the safety of the building, the worse it would be when he braved the weather. The smart option was to leave while the weather was still relatively light.

Yu stayed inside all the same. It was December 24th. The sun was setting in the west and the lights of the Christmas decorations flickered on around the station plaza. If he had been in a better frame of mind, and less in a self-pitying fog, he might have paused to admire them; the city planners had really outdone themselves this year.

As it was, he checked the time. 4:49pm, which meant he had officially stayed here too long.

Yu shoved his flip phone back into his trouser pocket. By now the snow had piled into fist-sized drifts on the pavement. There were probably patches of black ice waiting to trip him up. He would need to practice caution.

He did not want to go home.

He pulled his blazer tighter around himself and stepped out into the wind anyway.

A sharp gust cut through his clothes and his churning thoughts. He hunched over against the wind and scurried down the sidewalk with the other passerby. Technically his home was only a few blocks away but he gave up halfway through and let the flurries blow him into the Junes that sat on the street corner. He stood in the entrance for a moment shivering. Then he found a small nook to hole up in and warm up.

Standing in a Junes while rubbing his arms was downright…nostalgic. It was all here; the noise of a crowd during the holiday rush, the theme playing intermittently over the intercom before they announced the new sale, and all of it going on while a cold storm blew outside.

The only thing missing was the handsome boy at the other end of the store. If Yu shut his eyes and let the noise move him, maybe he would find Yosuke there.

Except, well, of course he wouldn’t. Yosuke was in Inaba, presumably preparing to celebrate Christmas with his family and the remaining members of the Investigation Team. He had said as much when he talked to Yu over the phone last week.

_“And you’ll be there too, right partner?”_

Yu hadn’t known how to answer. He still didn’t.

As if summoned by divine intent, his phone started buzzing in his pocket. Yu made a show of checking the caller ID but he knew exactly who it was.

He did his best to keep his voice steady as he answered. “Hey there, Yosuke.”

“Yo! Glad to hear your voice, uh...did I call you at a bad time?”

“No. No, it’s fine I…” Yu stared out through the glass doors. Snow flurries whistled through the growing dark. “It’s been a rough day.”

“Damn, on Christmas Eve? That sucks. Where are you right now?”

“My local Junes, actually. They just announced the Christmas cake restocking.”

“Ha, holy shit! Is that the one in Shibuya?”

“Yeah. I was on my way home from some last minute college-prep and a storm kicked up. Blew me in here.” Yu turned away from the bad weather. Without any clear plan or direction, he melted into the flow of the crowd so they would carry him deeper into the store. “I forgot my winter coat at home. I guess I could pick one up here…”

“Hey, you still remember my discount code right? Just use that if you pick one up. Oh, you can try a new color while you’re at it!”

This forced Yu to stop by an aisle full of coffee. He covered his mouth with one hand, desperately trying to pull down the corners of his lips, but it was too late: he was already smiling.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. White is a perfectly acceptable--”

“You can’t fool me! I hear you smiling, partner!”

Yu couldn’t help himself. He snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Mr. Stoic. So, what’re you gonna get besides the coat?”

Yu looked around. He picked up a box of coffee grounds at random. It was one of the imported Italian brands Junes kept trying to market to people. Having actually been to Italy, Yu knew for a fact how garbage this particular one was, but the more successful competitor wasn’t available. He put it down.

“I don’t know. There aren’t any plans tonight. Honestly I was just going to order take out. But now I feel bad making a delivery guy bring me food in a storm like this…”

“Oh!” Yu heard a faint creak from Yosuke’s side of the phone. He must be in his computer chair in his bedroom. “Then...Christmas was a no-go this year, huh?”

Yu went very still. All of a sudden the noise of Junes flooded over him, washing out Yosuke completely. There was a painful frozen block in his chest where his heart should have been.

How on earth did he explain? Sorry, my father said no. Sorry, my mother screamed at me over the breakfast table when I floated the idea. Sorry, I’m too whipped to buy my own train ticket and just come find you myself.

“...tner. Partner. Hey!”

Yosuke, right. The phone, right. Sorry, I’m too cowardly to tell you that you’re correct.

“Can you hear me?”

Yu inhaled. “Yeah. I -- I can hear you.”

“Okay. Just breathe, alright?”

And that’s exactly what Yu did. He huddled in Aisle 3 while Yosuke’s voice washed the ice out of his chest, heavy with everything he had yet to say.

Yosuke didn’t ask about Christmas, or about Yu visiting Inaba. He just filled the air with meaningless chatter -- complaining about Teddie, and speculating about Kanji and Naoto, talking up Nanako’s latest achievement in school. It was enough to let Yu breathe again.

When Yosuke finally drifted off, having run out of anything to say, Yu was finally able to speak. “I can’t come this year. My parents said no. It was -- they don’t want me there. I don’t know why.”

“Dude, it’s okay. You’ve told me all about them, I know.” Yu could hear more creaking, rhythmic this time. Yosuke must be bouncing his leg. “Are they with you now?”

Yu snorted. “Of course not. But they said they would be home tomorrow, so…”

“You can’t just take off by yourself.”

This was the part of the conversation Yu hated. When there was nothing left to say -- just two disappointed people in the same trap. And there was no way for him to fix it.

“Partner...look, it’s not the end of the world, we’ll...we’ll do something else. Promise. I can always come up there for New Years you know.”

Yu smiled. “New Years, huh?”

“Yeah, and we can visit that big temple on the other side of town. That sounds alright, doesn’t it?”

‘Alright’ was a word for it. Yu hated it but he also hated anything that kept him separated from Yosuke like this.

“I’d like that,” he said.

“Good. Hey -- how much power do you have on your phone?”

“Huh?”

“Just -- don’t hang up, okay? Go look at the coats.”

“You want to listen to me trying on coats?”

It felt a little bit like being back in Inaba to shop like this. Yosuke chattered in Yu’s ear like he was right at his shoulder as Yu searched for a winter coat. Yu was a little concerned at how suggestable this made him. Yosuke encouraged him to get a blue coat and Yu found himself agreeing to it. Then Yosuke told him to make something besides instant noodles for Christmas Eve dinner, and Yu found himself agreeing to that too. It all went by in a smeary blur of Junes and the cashier’s face at the amount of money Yosuke’s employee discount knocked off the price and the endless stream of words over Yu’s phone. By the time Yu was walking down the sidewalk in a new coat and hands full of groceries the sun had completely gone down.

“It’s not a total bust,” Yu said when he arrived at home. “I got to decorate at least. I put up lights and everything.”

“Leave those up for New Years, I wanna see ‘em!” Then Yosuke lowered his voice, as if he was asking about something terribly secret. “Is there a tree?”

Yu stopped in the middle of unloading groceries and laughed. “No, there isn’t a tree!”

“Then you don’t have everything up! Wait, what are you making?”

The night passed by much more pleasantly with Yosuke in his ear. Yu’s fears about being alone on Christmas Eve where eased, at least a little. A phone call from Yosuke wasn’t nearly as good as actually seeing him, but Yu would take what he could get.

Somewhere around midnight, Yu had finished eating and thrown his dishes in the sink. He turned off the lights and lay in the dark on his mother’s sofa, surrounded by the Christmas lights he had put up two weeks ago. The storm outside howled and it was like hearing a lonely wolf.

“Partner?”

Yosuke’s voice was so faint. Yu pushed the volume up and pressed the phone back to his ear. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“I saw the weather report. You’re really getting it over there.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if you were here,” Yu admitted.

“Well, maybe if…”

“Huh?”

Yosuke didn’t respond for a while. Then he only replied, “I miss you.”

There was snow and wind and hail beating against the windows. It sounded like a thousand nails clawing on the glass. A thousand hands trying to break in.

A thousand curses trying to destroy him.

Yu cupped one of the strands of lights hanging from the ceiling. A few bulbs settled in his palm. When he closed his fist around them, like crushing a tarot card, he could swear he saw light coming through his fingernails.

“Yosuke, you-- you know that I--“

“Shh. Shhhhh, don’t, not -- not yet, don’t say it yet. Not until I see you again. And then we’ll -- we’ll say it as often as we want. I promise.”

Yu tried to imagine it. A moment where he could tell Yosuke everything, give a voice to the quiet desperate emotion that had grown between them last year and persisted into this one. He had thought it was a crush while he was in Inaba and let every opportunity pass him by.

He knew better now.

He released the strand of lights. It fell away from him and swung gently, casting shadows on the walls.

“You were right,” he said. “I should’ve gotten a tree. Even a fake one.”

Yosuke laughed. It sounded a little watery. “I’ll help you pick one out when I get there.”

“On New Years?”

“Yes, weirdo. On New Years.”

“Okay. Yosuke…”

But he didn’t need to finish his sentence. Yosuke knew. He always knew.

“I’ll stay on the line with you,” he promised. “Until we both fall asleep.”

They talked about other things, though Yu couldn’t remember what about. His battery wound down and their conversation drifted more and more. The last thing he thought before sleep claimed him was how the strands of Christmas lights reminded him of the tongues of a small fire, pushing back against the dark. He closed his eyes. Yosuke snored through the speaker. Yu would have given a lot to have it be next to him instead.

Inaba had taught him how impossible it was to face the dark on his own.

Yu only woke up at someone knocking on the door.

He stumbled to his feet, whacked his shoulder on a door frame, and then paused at the kitchen window while the pounding continued. He pulled a curtain to one side and gasped. His window was blanketed in snow, piled high enough to blot out the entire thing. The knocking on the door intensified. What time was it anyway?

Yu checked the oven and did a double take. Mid-morning already? How long had he been asleep? How high was the snow outside?

The person at the door kept knocking, much more insistently now.

“Alright, alright,” he muttered and opened it. “Who the hell is it--“

And as if he has been planted there by God to be Yu’s personal ray of sunshine, Yosuke Hanamura said, “Hey. Did you know the street cleaners already pushed the snow out of the road? Pretty impressive I thin-- whoa!”

Yu pulled him inside and shut the door. At first he only wanted to dust the snow off Yosuke’s head and shoulders but he lost track halfway through and ended up plastering his best friend to the door with a kiss. Yosuke didn’t try to fight it, or ask Yu what he was doing. He just made a pleased noise and took Yu by the hips and pulled him as close together as they could get.

“I thought,” Yu mumbled, “I thought you said--“

“You were sad on the phone,” Yosuke replied. “So I -- mmm -- caught a train and came up a little early. I figured we could get breakfast and find a tree and -- you know…”

Yu cupped Yosuke’s face in his hands. His heart hammered and he could hardly breathe but Yosuke was here, with Yu, pushing back against the dark.

_“...we’ll say it as often as we want…”_

“I love you, Yosuke Hanamura,” Yu said.

Yosuke knocked their foreheads together. He was beaming and it was like having a small piece of the sun. “I love you too. Merry Christmas, partner.”


End file.
